Unmade - Timeless fic - 3/3
Summary: "I don't believe being an asshole is genetic." A trip to Texas in 1979 and a bungled stick up hit a little too close to home for Wyatt.
Rating: T
Words: 13,700
Spoilers: Generally up to 1.12ish.
Warnings: Minor language. Brief scene of attempted non-con (not graphic).
Disclaimer: Everything is owned by someone else.
A/N: So okay, I never expected to like Timeless, but it appears to have broken my brain. Contains gratuitous hand-holding of the 12 Monkeys kind and brief instances of Wyatt Worship. Backstory invented for Wyatt from a couple of lines in episode 1.4. I will be more than happy for this to be Kripked in the future, as this will mean the show has a future.
“Here comes the cavalry,” Flynn said, as four police cars skidded to a halt in the parking lot, a whole mess of cops tumbling out onto the gravel with weapons drawn.
Ray paled considerably, glancing over at Flynn. “You said they wouldn’t get here till after we left, man!” he burst out.
Flynn shrugged. “I lied.”
Ray blinked at him. “But-but what do we do now?”
Flynn inclined his head and sat back in his seat as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “You get your brains blown out, probably,” he said.
“Sonofa-” Frankie pointed his gun briefly at Flynn, as an authoritative voice suddenly boomed out of a bullhorn,
“You in the diner! Put down your weapons and come out with your hands raised!”
Ray swallowed, glancing from Flynn to the parking lot and back to Angie. “Money!” he snapped, pressing the muzzle of his weapon directly against the girl’s forehead. “In the bag! Now!”
Angie whimpered, and both Wyatt and Frankie made a move toward her, Frankie suddenly bringing his own gun to bear on Raymond.
“Get that thing away from her, man!” he snapped, pretty much stopping Wyatt in his tracks. “I’m not kidding! You hurt her and I’ll kill you!”
“Aww,” Flynn cooed. “It’s all so romantic!”
Lucy scowled at him, before her attention was drawn to movement beyond the window, as several police officers crept stealthily towards the front door of the diner.
“Oh crap,” she muttered, causing Rufus to swivel in his seat in order to see what was going on.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy noticed Miles Carmichael pulling his wife in front of him as his son stood up and moved a couple of paces closer to where Frankie stood with his gun still trained on Ray.
“Those cops come in here and see you both with weapons drawn, they’re gonna blow you both away,” Wyatt told the erstwhile robbers flatly. “Along with everyone else here. You want that? Huh? Put your guns down, you idiots!”
Frankie and Ray looked at each other, both shaking their heads.
“Him first!” Ray snapped, his hand trembling as he continued to press his gun against Angie’s head.
“I told you,” Frankie snapped back, springing forward before grabbing Angie’s arm and yanking her behind him and away from Ray’s gun. “You get the hell away from her!”
Ray’s fingers tightened around the trigger guard, and suddenly the two friends had their weapons drawn on each other.
“You’d ditch me for a chick?!” Ray whined. “Ah man, that’s just low.”
“She-she took care o’ me,” Frankie stumbled. “No one’s ever done that for me before.”
Wyatt looked mildly surprised by that admission, while Flynn merely drawled,
“Someone hand me a tissue, would you?”
And that was when the glass panel in the front door exploded inward and the first cop over the threshold opened fire.
And it was as if everything stopped.
Lucy turned immediately to Wyatt for direction, as she always did in these sorts of life and death, about to get your head blown off situations.
But he wasn’t looking at her.
At least, he was only looking at her for a split second.
She’d seen him do this before too.
And in the second between that first shot ringing out and Wyatt moving, Lucy finally understood exactly what he was doing.
His gaze skipped from Lucy and Rufus, to Anderton Carmichael, to Frankie and Angie, then to where the cops were charging into the room and to Flynn, as he reached into his pocket and once again pulled out his Glock; and she could see it all in his eyes, could see the thoughts spinning through his head: distance, velocity, speed, angle, assessing everything as Flynn brought his weapon to bear on Anderton Carmichael and the cops pointed theirs at Ray Harris and Wyatt’s dad.
It took him a second, maybe less than a second, and then he was moving, first towards Lucy and Rufus, as Lucy knew he would, kicking the table they were sitting behind so hard it flew up slightly into the air, where Wyatt grabbed it one-handed and slammed it down on its side in front of them, knocking Flynn to the ground as it did so.
“Get down!” Wyatt yelled at Lucy, who grabbed Rufus and yanked him behind the table with her, just as Wyatt dived for the Rittenhouse kid, grabbed him around the middle and vaulted over the counter with him, the two shots Flynn managed to fire from his position on the floor taking out a napkin holder and a chunk of the heel of Wyatt’s boot.
And then Flynn swore as his 9mm clicked onto empty.
Once safely behind the counter with the kid, Lucy heard two shots ring out from Wyatt’s position, both Ray and Frankie yelping in surprise as their guns suddenly weren’t in their hands anymore.
Ray fell back to the ground, clutching at his bleeding hand, but Frankie appeared only to have been burned by Wyatt’s bullet grazing his fingers and slamming into his .38, sending it clattering over the counter and skidding across the tiles until it came to a stop five inches from Garcia Flynn’s foot.
“Nobody move!” the first cop yelled, and nobody did except Flynn, who snatched up Frankie’s gun, sprinted across the diner and threw himself over the counter, barely inches in front of the five rounds the lead cop managed to put into the table Lucy and Rufus were crouching behind, the floor, and finally the counter itself.
Lucy wasn’t entirely sure what happened next.
There was another bang from behind the counter, and Flynn was up on his feet, dragging Frankie behind him with Wyatt on his heels.
“Nobody move!” the lead cop yelled again, one round narrowly missing Wyatt’s head and shattering the dessert cabinet to his left, and he stopped dead, left hand raised as he lowered his gun to the counter behind him with his right.
“United States Army!” he bellowed at the cop. “That man has a hostage!”
The cop paused. “Hold your fire!” he ordered, as Flynn pulled Frankie in front of him and began to back the two of them toward the door to the kitchen.
“Everybody relax, and no one needs to get hurt,” Flynn said, and Lucy was pretty sure he wasn’t talking to anyone but Wyatt.
Wyatt took a slow breath. “Let him go, Flynn,” he said, his voice deceptively calm. “You didn’t get what you wanted. The kid’s still alive,” he pointed out, moving a little to his left to ensure the boy was completely behind him, “I’m still alive, Lucy and Rufus are still alive-” he glanced over at them just to double check they were still alive. “Chalk this one up to bad luck and cut your losses.”
“Bad luck and Wyatt Logan,” Flynn said. “Not exactly my favorite combination of circumstances.” He still had Frankie’s gun pointed at Wyatt’s dad’s head, and although Lucy wasn’t entirely sure it would still work, although she thought Wyatt’s bullet hit the grip when he shot it out of Frankie’s hand, Wyatt himself didn’t appear to be taking any chances. “Now I’m getting home in one piece, whether you like it or not. Whether you’re getting there at all? Well that’s entirely up to you.”
Wyatt took another breath, and Lucy could almost see him thinking.
“You could shoot Frankie, of course,” Flynn continued. “You’re standing close enough that a bullet to his chest would go straight through him and into me. Two birds with one stone.”
Wyatt hesitated, his hand hovering over the Beretta he’d just put down onto the counter.
“Wyatt?” Lucy said, not liking the note of pleading in her voice one bit. “Don’t. Please? Please don’t.”
“Come on, Master Sergeant,” Flynn continued to taunt him. “It’s you or me. Your mission or self-preservation. Which is it going to be? You gonna put yourself above your orders? Huh? Are you that selfish?”
Wyatt blinked at him, not moving even the slightest bit.
“Wyatt?” Lucy said again. “Please?”
Wyatt glanced over at her, just once.
And she couldn’t read his expression.
What Wyatt did next? Well Lucy was pretty sure even he was surprised.
It took him a split second, and suddenly he had his gun in his hand again, and there was a bullet in his dad’s thigh.
Frankle yelped in surprised agony, his knees buckling out from under him so that he was a dead weight in Flynn’s arms and he had to let him fall to the ground.
Another split second and Garcia Flynn was standing there completely open and unprotected and Wyatt was six feet away from him with a loaded gun in his hand.
The two of them just looked at each other.
“You want to risk it?” Flynn asked, taking a step backwards. “I could kill them both before you even-”
Wyatt got three rounds off before Flynn ducked back into the kitchen, Frankie’s gun clattering to the floor as he clutched at his bleeding arm with a grunt of startled pain.
“Weapons down!” the cop yelled again, and this time, Wyatt complied, tossing his gun onto the counter and raising his hands above his head.
Angie crawled over from her position on the floor next to the Rittenhouse kid until she was at Frankie’s side, her hand on the wound to his thigh as she pulled a pile of napkins onto the floor and proceeded to put as much pressure on the wound as she could get.
“What the hell just happened?” she gasped, her attention sliding from Frankie to Wyatt. “Who the hell are you?”
“Did he say your name was Logan?” Frankie asked. “Are we related or somethin’?”
Wyatt swallowed as the cops swarmed around them, snatching up every firearm in sight.
“Uh,” he stammered. “I don’t... Coincidence,” he managed lamely, as one of the cops grabbed his left wrist and proceeded to twist it up behind his back before slapping on the cuffs.
Next thing, he was face down on the counter being cuffed to the rear as the lead cop picked up his Beretta and began to examine it with some interest.
“Never seen a 9 mil like this one before,” he said. “Looks kinda foreign.”
Wyatt nodded. “Special military issue,” he said easily. “Experimental.”
“Ah,” the cop said. “You got ID?”
Wyatt nodded. “Uh. Maybe in my jacket? Wherever that ended up.”
“Here!” Lucy snatched up the jacket Wyatt had left on his chair, which was now on the floor with a couple of fairly decent-sized bullet holes in it. Fishing in the pocket, she pulled out the fake ID Agent Christopher had given him, fervently hoping it was a military one.
The cop examined it carefully. “Master Sergeant, huh?” he said, and for a second Lucy wondered whether Wyatt had brought his actual ID with him.
“Yes sir,” Wyatt confirmed, offering no resistance to the cop currently restraining him.
The lead cop nodded at his colleague. “Let him go, Mike,” he said. “He actually is US Army.”
The patrolman quickly released the cuffs and allowed Wyatt up.
“Thank you, officer,” Wyatt said politely. “Uh, you may want to get an ambulance? Kinda hit the kid in the leg by accident.” He indicated Frankie, who was looking at him as if he didn’t know whether to hate him or thank him.
The officer nodded, getting onto his radio as Lucy managed to pick her way through the debris until she was at Wyatt’s side.
“I think we need to get out of here,” she said quietly. “Before anyone starts asking awkward questions?”
“My baby! Where’s my baby!” a shrill voice suddenly emanated from the back of the diner, and Anderton Carmichael’s mother was teetering across the tiles in her ridiculously high heels.
Wyatt bent down and took the kid’s hand, gently pulling him to his feet. “He’s fine, ma’am,” he told the woman, lifting the kid up and sitting him on the counter. “Just seems to have gotten half the dessert cabinet on him.”
Indeed, Anderton Carmichael seemed pretty much oblivious to the chaos going on around him, busily licking cheesecake off his fingers.
Mrs. Carmichael appeared completely horrified. “My child has blood in his hair!”
Wyatt glanced at the kid’s head. “I think that’s cherry pie, ma’am,” he corrected her.
She just looked at him for an instant before bursting out, “Oh my God, but that’s so much worse!”
“Uh, guys,” Rufus had appeared at Lucy’s side. “How are we getting out of this without spending the next ten hours at the Sheriff’s station?”
Wyatt indicated the door to the kitchen. “Same way Flynn got out,” he said. “Come on. I’ve had enough nostalgia for one day.”
Distracted by the hysterical whimperings of Anderton Carmichael’s mother, the cops didn’t notice as Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus quietly snuck out the back way.
But not before Lucy heard Angie murmur, “Wyatt. That’s a nice name…”
*To say how softly-spoken Agent Christopher generally was, Lucy could hear her yelling at Wyatt halfway down the hallway.
“You had Garcia Flynn right there in front of you and you didn’t take the shot?” she snapped. “Am I reading your report correctly, Master Sergeant?”
Lucy moved to the briefing room door to try and better hear Wyatt’s side of the conversation.
Although his reply of, “Yes, ma’am,” was fairly predictable.
“And why on earth would you do that?”
“Because if I’d taken the shot, it would have endangered a civilian, ma’am.”
“One of the idiots stupid enough to help Flynn rob a diner?”
Lucy was pretty sure she heard Wyatt swallow. “Yes, ma’am.”
Come on, Wyatt, tell her, dammit!
“And if you’d endangered this civilian, how many lives do you think you would have saved if you’d taken the damn shot and dealt with Garcia Flynn like you were ordered to?”
Wyatt hesitated. “I don’t know, ma’am,” he replied.
“Do you have any idea how hard I have to fight to keep you here?” Christopher said suddenly. “Every time the three of you go off on a mission and come back without Garcia Flynn dead or in custody my bosses want to fire you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Because, out of the three of you, you’re the one they think is expendable. Replaceable. Not important. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Wyatt paused again. “Yes, ma’am.”
It was Agent Christopher’s turn to take a breath. “You know sometimes military people can be so damn infuriating,” she said. “‘Yes, ma’am, no ma’am,’ sometimes I wish you’d just tell me what you’re actually thinking, Wyatt.”
Wyatt paused again. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Lucy actually heard Agent Christopher sigh.
“So why did you really not take that shot?”
“There was a civilian...” Wyatt began to repeat.
“Lucy, get the hell in here!” Agent Christopher suddenly interrupted him, and Lucy startled so much she banged her forehead against the door.
Rubbing at her temple, she gingerly pushed open the door and stuck her head ever so slightly into the room. “I’m sorry,” she began. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I just-”
“Yes you did,” Agent Christopher corrected her.
Lucy blinked. “Well-”
“Why didn’t Wyatt take the shot?”
Wyatt had been standing completely still, hands behind his back, eyes straight forward, but for a brief second he glanced sideways at Lucy as she moved to stand next to him.
“I’m not sure it’s my place to-”
“Lucy.”
“The civilian was Wyatt’s dad,” Lucy blurted, and Wyatt closed his eyes briefly on an exhalation. “If he’d shot at Flynn, he would have shot his dad, and if anything happened to his dad, then-”
“Wyatt would have been erased from history,” Agent Christopher finished for her. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Ma’am-” Wyatt began to protest, but the Agent silenced him with a wave of her hand.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” she asked.
Wyatt blinked. “I don’t-it was selfish. I should have...I could have...”
“It’s not selfish to want to continue to exist, Wyatt.”
“If he wasn’t here, if he’d never been born,” Lucy put in, “myself and Rufus would probably have been killed ten times over by now. Not to mention all the people he saved before he came here. He’s not expendable and he’s not replaceable, and he’s certainly not not important. If that-well, you know what I mean.”
Agent Christopher smiled just a little. “I didn’t say he was any of those things, Lucy,” she pointed out, before turning back to Wyatt. “But you should have told me.”
Wyatt shrugged. “I was...I was embarrassed. By him. By not having the guts to kill him.”
“Killing your own father would have been bad enough without knowing you’d be erasing yourself from history at the same time,” Agent Christopher said, her voice softening.
Wyatt suddenly found the carpet extremely interesting. “Yes ma’am.”
“And it’s not like I didn’t already know.”
Wyatt looked up at her sharply. “Ma’am?”
“You think I hire people without knowing every single thing there is to know about them?”
Wyatt blinked at her.
“I knew where your parents were living in 1979, son. And I knew there was a chance you might bump into them if I sent you there.”
“Then why did you...?”
“There had to be a reason Flynn went to that exact place at that exact time. And I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“But why would you still send me on a mission where you knew I could be compromised?”
Agent Christopher smiled softly at him. “Because you’re not expendable, or replaceable and you’re certainly not not important,” she said. “Wyatt, we don’t get to choose our family. I knew all about Frankie Logan when I hired you.”
Wyatt didn’t respond to that immediately. “And yet you still hired me?”
“I don’t believe being an asshole is genetic,” she said.
Wyatt actually smiled a little at that. “Thank you, ma’am.” He paused for a second, then added, “What happened to him and my mom? I kinda don’t know if anything changed.”
The agent picked up a file from the table in front of her.
“Well, your dad did some time for the diner hold-up,” she said, scanning through the attached pages. “I’m guessing that’s different?”
Wyatt glanced at Lucy before nodding.
“He only did six months, though. It seems your mother appeared as a character witness at his trial. Said he saved her life.”
“He kind of did,” Lucy put in.
“Your parents didn’t marry until, oh, four years later.” Agent Christopher glanced up at Wyatt, and he shrugged.
“When I came along,” he confirmed. “My dad wasn’t big into commitment. It was only when my grandpa threatened to castrate him that he did the right thing.”
“Um,” Agent Christopher continued to scan the file. “Your mom...” She paused for a second and looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Wyatt, but she still died of breast cancer in 1991.”
Wyatt nodded. “Didn’t really expect that to have changed, ma’am,” he said, and Lucy might have imagined the slight catch in his voice but she was pretty sure she didn’t.
“Your dad, well,” the agent pushed her hair behind her ear. “A couple of arrests before your mom passed, and then quite a few after. His buddy Raymond Harris did five years for the diner stick up. Seems like he got out around the time you were born and eventually tempted your dad back into bad habits. They did a few minor stretches together, then in ’94 they robbed a convenience store. Harris shot and killed the clerk and went away for life, and your dad got twenty years.”
Lucy sucked in a breath. “You never said someone died,” she commented. “Or that your dad went away for so long-”
“He didn’t,” Agent Christopher said shortly. “He was killed in a disturbance in his cell block in ’98.”
Wyatt nodded minutely. “Pretty much all stayed the same then,” he said.
“I’m sorry, son,” Agent Christopher said. “I wish things had worked out better this time around.”
Wyatt shrugged. “I was better off after he went to prison,” he said. “I think...I think my mom made him a better person, you know? He was-different-while she was alive. Even held down a couple of jobs. But after... After she died, I guess he reverted to type. I dunno. Maybe some things are just meant to be.” He didn’t look at Lucy, but she figured that was meant for her.
“Well,” Agent Christopher said, “that may be true, but I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the heads up before I sent you back there.”
Wyatt shrugged again. “All part of the job, ma’am.”
*“It’s a sucky part of the job,” Lucy commented as she and Wyatt headed back toward the locker room. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Wyatt was as unreadable as ever. “It was nice to see my mom again,” he commented. “I don’t really…” He stopped abruptly, as if he suddenly realized he was speaking out loud.
Lucy slowed him with a hand on his arm. “You don’t really what?” she prodded.
Wyatt took a breath, examining his shoes before slowly looking up at Lucy. “I don’t really remember her that much,” he said quietly, and Lucy’s fingers slid down his forearm until they curled about his hand.
“I liked her,” she told him.
“Not as much as Rufus did,” Wyatt returned with a subdued smile.
“Oh God, he’ll be going on about that forever!” Lucy agreed.
“He thinks my mom was Tinkerbell,” Wyatt pointed out flatly.
“There are worse things she could have been,” Lucy said. “Still. She seemed like a nice person. Had a good heart.” She squeezed his fingers gently. “She reminded me a lot of you. Or you remind me of her. You know what I mean.” She smiled softly at him. “You’re a lot more like her than your dad.”
“God, I hope so,” Wyatt murmured.
Lucy squeezed his hand again. “I’m glad you didn’t…unmake yourself,” she said softly, blinking up at him with suspiciously watery eyes.
Too much damn 1970s mascara again, she told herself.
Yeah, that was it.
Mascara.
He didn’t meet her gaze, his eyes downcast, fixed on her fingers entwined in his.
“Don’t ever think you’re not important,” she added, finally touching his face with a gentle hand and raising his eyes back up to meet her own. “Because you are. To me. Rufus. Agent Christopher. Every person you ever saved, every life you ever touched. I’m glad I know you, Wyatt. And I don’t want that to be undone. Not ever.”
Wyatt’s eyes seemed a little misty right then too, and Lucy was pretty sure he couldn’t blame it on 1970s mascara.
“Okay?” Lucy prodded.
“Yeah,” Wyatt agreed at length. “Okay.”
Lucy smiled brightly at him. “You know what we need to do right now?” she asked.
Wyatt squinted at her. “Do I want to ask?”
“Ice cream,” Lucy said. “We need ice cream.”
“We’re not six years old, Lucy.”
“You’re never too old for ice cream,” she told him. “Now come on. We should grab Rufus and Jiya on the way.”
“The way to where?”
“I know this fantastic little diner just down the street…”
“Oh God, kill me now…”
The End
Rating: T
Words: 13,700
Spoilers: Generally up to 1.12ish.
Warnings: Minor language. Brief scene of attempted non-con (not graphic).
Disclaimer: Everything is owned by someone else.
A/N: So okay, I never expected to like Timeless, but it appears to have broken my brain. Contains gratuitous hand-holding of the 12 Monkeys kind and brief instances of Wyatt Worship. Backstory invented for Wyatt from a couple of lines in episode 1.4. I will be more than happy for this to be Kripked in the future, as this will mean the show has a future.
“Here comes the cavalry,” Flynn said, as four police cars skidded to a halt in the parking lot, a whole mess of cops tumbling out onto the gravel with weapons drawn.
Ray paled considerably, glancing over at Flynn. “You said they wouldn’t get here till after we left, man!” he burst out.
Flynn shrugged. “I lied.”
Ray blinked at him. “But-but what do we do now?”
Flynn inclined his head and sat back in his seat as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “You get your brains blown out, probably,” he said.
“Sonofa-” Frankie pointed his gun briefly at Flynn, as an authoritative voice suddenly boomed out of a bullhorn,
“You in the diner! Put down your weapons and come out with your hands raised!”
Ray swallowed, glancing from Flynn to the parking lot and back to Angie. “Money!” he snapped, pressing the muzzle of his weapon directly against the girl’s forehead. “In the bag! Now!”
Angie whimpered, and both Wyatt and Frankie made a move toward her, Frankie suddenly bringing his own gun to bear on Raymond.
“Get that thing away from her, man!” he snapped, pretty much stopping Wyatt in his tracks. “I’m not kidding! You hurt her and I’ll kill you!”
“Aww,” Flynn cooed. “It’s all so romantic!”
Lucy scowled at him, before her attention was drawn to movement beyond the window, as several police officers crept stealthily towards the front door of the diner.
“Oh crap,” she muttered, causing Rufus to swivel in his seat in order to see what was going on.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy noticed Miles Carmichael pulling his wife in front of him as his son stood up and moved a couple of paces closer to where Frankie stood with his gun still trained on Ray.
“Those cops come in here and see you both with weapons drawn, they’re gonna blow you both away,” Wyatt told the erstwhile robbers flatly. “Along with everyone else here. You want that? Huh? Put your guns down, you idiots!”
Frankie and Ray looked at each other, both shaking their heads.
“Him first!” Ray snapped, his hand trembling as he continued to press his gun against Angie’s head.
“I told you,” Frankie snapped back, springing forward before grabbing Angie’s arm and yanking her behind him and away from Ray’s gun. “You get the hell away from her!”
Ray’s fingers tightened around the trigger guard, and suddenly the two friends had their weapons drawn on each other.
“You’d ditch me for a chick?!” Ray whined. “Ah man, that’s just low.”
“She-she took care o’ me,” Frankie stumbled. “No one’s ever done that for me before.”
Wyatt looked mildly surprised by that admission, while Flynn merely drawled,
“Someone hand me a tissue, would you?”
And that was when the glass panel in the front door exploded inward and the first cop over the threshold opened fire.
And it was as if everything stopped.
Lucy turned immediately to Wyatt for direction, as she always did in these sorts of life and death, about to get your head blown off situations.
But he wasn’t looking at her.
At least, he was only looking at her for a split second.
She’d seen him do this before too.
And in the second between that first shot ringing out and Wyatt moving, Lucy finally understood exactly what he was doing.
His gaze skipped from Lucy and Rufus, to Anderton Carmichael, to Frankie and Angie, then to where the cops were charging into the room and to Flynn, as he reached into his pocket and once again pulled out his Glock; and she could see it all in his eyes, could see the thoughts spinning through his head: distance, velocity, speed, angle, assessing everything as Flynn brought his weapon to bear on Anderton Carmichael and the cops pointed theirs at Ray Harris and Wyatt’s dad.
It took him a second, maybe less than a second, and then he was moving, first towards Lucy and Rufus, as Lucy knew he would, kicking the table they were sitting behind so hard it flew up slightly into the air, where Wyatt grabbed it one-handed and slammed it down on its side in front of them, knocking Flynn to the ground as it did so.
“Get down!” Wyatt yelled at Lucy, who grabbed Rufus and yanked him behind the table with her, just as Wyatt dived for the Rittenhouse kid, grabbed him around the middle and vaulted over the counter with him, the two shots Flynn managed to fire from his position on the floor taking out a napkin holder and a chunk of the heel of Wyatt’s boot.
And then Flynn swore as his 9mm clicked onto empty.
Once safely behind the counter with the kid, Lucy heard two shots ring out from Wyatt’s position, both Ray and Frankie yelping in surprise as their guns suddenly weren’t in their hands anymore.
Ray fell back to the ground, clutching at his bleeding hand, but Frankie appeared only to have been burned by Wyatt’s bullet grazing his fingers and slamming into his .38, sending it clattering over the counter and skidding across the tiles until it came to a stop five inches from Garcia Flynn’s foot.
“Nobody move!” the first cop yelled, and nobody did except Flynn, who snatched up Frankie’s gun, sprinted across the diner and threw himself over the counter, barely inches in front of the five rounds the lead cop managed to put into the table Lucy and Rufus were crouching behind, the floor, and finally the counter itself.
Lucy wasn’t entirely sure what happened next.
There was another bang from behind the counter, and Flynn was up on his feet, dragging Frankie behind him with Wyatt on his heels.
“Nobody move!” the lead cop yelled again, one round narrowly missing Wyatt’s head and shattering the dessert cabinet to his left, and he stopped dead, left hand raised as he lowered his gun to the counter behind him with his right.
“United States Army!” he bellowed at the cop. “That man has a hostage!”
The cop paused. “Hold your fire!” he ordered, as Flynn pulled Frankie in front of him and began to back the two of them toward the door to the kitchen.
“Everybody relax, and no one needs to get hurt,” Flynn said, and Lucy was pretty sure he wasn’t talking to anyone but Wyatt.
Wyatt took a slow breath. “Let him go, Flynn,” he said, his voice deceptively calm. “You didn’t get what you wanted. The kid’s still alive,” he pointed out, moving a little to his left to ensure the boy was completely behind him, “I’m still alive, Lucy and Rufus are still alive-” he glanced over at them just to double check they were still alive. “Chalk this one up to bad luck and cut your losses.”
“Bad luck and Wyatt Logan,” Flynn said. “Not exactly my favorite combination of circumstances.” He still had Frankie’s gun pointed at Wyatt’s dad’s head, and although Lucy wasn’t entirely sure it would still work, although she thought Wyatt’s bullet hit the grip when he shot it out of Frankie’s hand, Wyatt himself didn’t appear to be taking any chances. “Now I’m getting home in one piece, whether you like it or not. Whether you’re getting there at all? Well that’s entirely up to you.”
Wyatt took another breath, and Lucy could almost see him thinking.
“You could shoot Frankie, of course,” Flynn continued. “You’re standing close enough that a bullet to his chest would go straight through him and into me. Two birds with one stone.”
Wyatt hesitated, his hand hovering over the Beretta he’d just put down onto the counter.
“Wyatt?” Lucy said, not liking the note of pleading in her voice one bit. “Don’t. Please? Please don’t.”
“Come on, Master Sergeant,” Flynn continued to taunt him. “It’s you or me. Your mission or self-preservation. Which is it going to be? You gonna put yourself above your orders? Huh? Are you that selfish?”
Wyatt blinked at him, not moving even the slightest bit.
“Wyatt?” Lucy said again. “Please?”
Wyatt glanced over at her, just once.
And she couldn’t read his expression.
What Wyatt did next? Well Lucy was pretty sure even he was surprised.
It took him a split second, and suddenly he had his gun in his hand again, and there was a bullet in his dad’s thigh.
Frankle yelped in surprised agony, his knees buckling out from under him so that he was a dead weight in Flynn’s arms and he had to let him fall to the ground.
Another split second and Garcia Flynn was standing there completely open and unprotected and Wyatt was six feet away from him with a loaded gun in his hand.
The two of them just looked at each other.
“You want to risk it?” Flynn asked, taking a step backwards. “I could kill them both before you even-”
Wyatt got three rounds off before Flynn ducked back into the kitchen, Frankie’s gun clattering to the floor as he clutched at his bleeding arm with a grunt of startled pain.
“Weapons down!” the cop yelled again, and this time, Wyatt complied, tossing his gun onto the counter and raising his hands above his head.
Angie crawled over from her position on the floor next to the Rittenhouse kid until she was at Frankie’s side, her hand on the wound to his thigh as she pulled a pile of napkins onto the floor and proceeded to put as much pressure on the wound as she could get.
“What the hell just happened?” she gasped, her attention sliding from Frankie to Wyatt. “Who the hell are you?”
“Did he say your name was Logan?” Frankie asked. “Are we related or somethin’?”
Wyatt swallowed as the cops swarmed around them, snatching up every firearm in sight.
“Uh,” he stammered. “I don’t... Coincidence,” he managed lamely, as one of the cops grabbed his left wrist and proceeded to twist it up behind his back before slapping on the cuffs.
Next thing, he was face down on the counter being cuffed to the rear as the lead cop picked up his Beretta and began to examine it with some interest.
“Never seen a 9 mil like this one before,” he said. “Looks kinda foreign.”
Wyatt nodded. “Special military issue,” he said easily. “Experimental.”
“Ah,” the cop said. “You got ID?”
Wyatt nodded. “Uh. Maybe in my jacket? Wherever that ended up.”
“Here!” Lucy snatched up the jacket Wyatt had left on his chair, which was now on the floor with a couple of fairly decent-sized bullet holes in it. Fishing in the pocket, she pulled out the fake ID Agent Christopher had given him, fervently hoping it was a military one.
The cop examined it carefully. “Master Sergeant, huh?” he said, and for a second Lucy wondered whether Wyatt had brought his actual ID with him.
“Yes sir,” Wyatt confirmed, offering no resistance to the cop currently restraining him.
The lead cop nodded at his colleague. “Let him go, Mike,” he said. “He actually is US Army.”
The patrolman quickly released the cuffs and allowed Wyatt up.
“Thank you, officer,” Wyatt said politely. “Uh, you may want to get an ambulance? Kinda hit the kid in the leg by accident.” He indicated Frankie, who was looking at him as if he didn’t know whether to hate him or thank him.
The officer nodded, getting onto his radio as Lucy managed to pick her way through the debris until she was at Wyatt’s side.
“I think we need to get out of here,” she said quietly. “Before anyone starts asking awkward questions?”
“My baby! Where’s my baby!” a shrill voice suddenly emanated from the back of the diner, and Anderton Carmichael’s mother was teetering across the tiles in her ridiculously high heels.
Wyatt bent down and took the kid’s hand, gently pulling him to his feet. “He’s fine, ma’am,” he told the woman, lifting the kid up and sitting him on the counter. “Just seems to have gotten half the dessert cabinet on him.”
Indeed, Anderton Carmichael seemed pretty much oblivious to the chaos going on around him, busily licking cheesecake off his fingers.
Mrs. Carmichael appeared completely horrified. “My child has blood in his hair!”
Wyatt glanced at the kid’s head. “I think that’s cherry pie, ma’am,” he corrected her.
She just looked at him for an instant before bursting out, “Oh my God, but that’s so much worse!”
“Uh, guys,” Rufus had appeared at Lucy’s side. “How are we getting out of this without spending the next ten hours at the Sheriff’s station?”
Wyatt indicated the door to the kitchen. “Same way Flynn got out,” he said. “Come on. I’ve had enough nostalgia for one day.”
Distracted by the hysterical whimperings of Anderton Carmichael’s mother, the cops didn’t notice as Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus quietly snuck out the back way.
But not before Lucy heard Angie murmur, “Wyatt. That’s a nice name…”
*To say how softly-spoken Agent Christopher generally was, Lucy could hear her yelling at Wyatt halfway down the hallway.
“You had Garcia Flynn right there in front of you and you didn’t take the shot?” she snapped. “Am I reading your report correctly, Master Sergeant?”
Lucy moved to the briefing room door to try and better hear Wyatt’s side of the conversation.
Although his reply of, “Yes, ma’am,” was fairly predictable.
“And why on earth would you do that?”
“Because if I’d taken the shot, it would have endangered a civilian, ma’am.”
“One of the idiots stupid enough to help Flynn rob a diner?”
Lucy was pretty sure she heard Wyatt swallow. “Yes, ma’am.”
Come on, Wyatt, tell her, dammit!
“And if you’d endangered this civilian, how many lives do you think you would have saved if you’d taken the damn shot and dealt with Garcia Flynn like you were ordered to?”
Wyatt hesitated. “I don’t know, ma’am,” he replied.
“Do you have any idea how hard I have to fight to keep you here?” Christopher said suddenly. “Every time the three of you go off on a mission and come back without Garcia Flynn dead or in custody my bosses want to fire you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Because, out of the three of you, you’re the one they think is expendable. Replaceable. Not important. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Wyatt paused again. “Yes, ma’am.”
It was Agent Christopher’s turn to take a breath. “You know sometimes military people can be so damn infuriating,” she said. “‘Yes, ma’am, no ma’am,’ sometimes I wish you’d just tell me what you’re actually thinking, Wyatt.”
Wyatt paused again. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Lucy actually heard Agent Christopher sigh.
“So why did you really not take that shot?”
“There was a civilian...” Wyatt began to repeat.
“Lucy, get the hell in here!” Agent Christopher suddenly interrupted him, and Lucy startled so much she banged her forehead against the door.
Rubbing at her temple, she gingerly pushed open the door and stuck her head ever so slightly into the room. “I’m sorry,” she began. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I just-”
“Yes you did,” Agent Christopher corrected her.
Lucy blinked. “Well-”
“Why didn’t Wyatt take the shot?”
Wyatt had been standing completely still, hands behind his back, eyes straight forward, but for a brief second he glanced sideways at Lucy as she moved to stand next to him.
“I’m not sure it’s my place to-”
“Lucy.”
“The civilian was Wyatt’s dad,” Lucy blurted, and Wyatt closed his eyes briefly on an exhalation. “If he’d shot at Flynn, he would have shot his dad, and if anything happened to his dad, then-”
“Wyatt would have been erased from history,” Agent Christopher finished for her. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Ma’am-” Wyatt began to protest, but the Agent silenced him with a wave of her hand.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” she asked.
Wyatt blinked. “I don’t-it was selfish. I should have...I could have...”
“It’s not selfish to want to continue to exist, Wyatt.”
“If he wasn’t here, if he’d never been born,” Lucy put in, “myself and Rufus would probably have been killed ten times over by now. Not to mention all the people he saved before he came here. He’s not expendable and he’s not replaceable, and he’s certainly not not important. If that-well, you know what I mean.”
Agent Christopher smiled just a little. “I didn’t say he was any of those things, Lucy,” she pointed out, before turning back to Wyatt. “But you should have told me.”
Wyatt shrugged. “I was...I was embarrassed. By him. By not having the guts to kill him.”
“Killing your own father would have been bad enough without knowing you’d be erasing yourself from history at the same time,” Agent Christopher said, her voice softening.
Wyatt suddenly found the carpet extremely interesting. “Yes ma’am.”
“And it’s not like I didn’t already know.”
Wyatt looked up at her sharply. “Ma’am?”
“You think I hire people without knowing every single thing there is to know about them?”
Wyatt blinked at her.
“I knew where your parents were living in 1979, son. And I knew there was a chance you might bump into them if I sent you there.”
“Then why did you...?”
“There had to be a reason Flynn went to that exact place at that exact time. And I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“But why would you still send me on a mission where you knew I could be compromised?”
Agent Christopher smiled softly at him. “Because you’re not expendable, or replaceable and you’re certainly not not important,” she said. “Wyatt, we don’t get to choose our family. I knew all about Frankie Logan when I hired you.”
Wyatt didn’t respond to that immediately. “And yet you still hired me?”
“I don’t believe being an asshole is genetic,” she said.
Wyatt actually smiled a little at that. “Thank you, ma’am.” He paused for a second, then added, “What happened to him and my mom? I kinda don’t know if anything changed.”
The agent picked up a file from the table in front of her.
“Well, your dad did some time for the diner hold-up,” she said, scanning through the attached pages. “I’m guessing that’s different?”
Wyatt glanced at Lucy before nodding.
“He only did six months, though. It seems your mother appeared as a character witness at his trial. Said he saved her life.”
“He kind of did,” Lucy put in.
“Your parents didn’t marry until, oh, four years later.” Agent Christopher glanced up at Wyatt, and he shrugged.
“When I came along,” he confirmed. “My dad wasn’t big into commitment. It was only when my grandpa threatened to castrate him that he did the right thing.”
“Um,” Agent Christopher continued to scan the file. “Your mom...” She paused for a second and looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Wyatt, but she still died of breast cancer in 1991.”
Wyatt nodded. “Didn’t really expect that to have changed, ma’am,” he said, and Lucy might have imagined the slight catch in his voice but she was pretty sure she didn’t.
“Your dad, well,” the agent pushed her hair behind her ear. “A couple of arrests before your mom passed, and then quite a few after. His buddy Raymond Harris did five years for the diner stick up. Seems like he got out around the time you were born and eventually tempted your dad back into bad habits. They did a few minor stretches together, then in ’94 they robbed a convenience store. Harris shot and killed the clerk and went away for life, and your dad got twenty years.”
Lucy sucked in a breath. “You never said someone died,” she commented. “Or that your dad went away for so long-”
“He didn’t,” Agent Christopher said shortly. “He was killed in a disturbance in his cell block in ’98.”
Wyatt nodded minutely. “Pretty much all stayed the same then,” he said.
“I’m sorry, son,” Agent Christopher said. “I wish things had worked out better this time around.”
Wyatt shrugged. “I was better off after he went to prison,” he said. “I think...I think my mom made him a better person, you know? He was-different-while she was alive. Even held down a couple of jobs. But after... After she died, I guess he reverted to type. I dunno. Maybe some things are just meant to be.” He didn’t look at Lucy, but she figured that was meant for her.
“Well,” Agent Christopher said, “that may be true, but I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the heads up before I sent you back there.”
Wyatt shrugged again. “All part of the job, ma’am.”
*“It’s a sucky part of the job,” Lucy commented as she and Wyatt headed back toward the locker room. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Wyatt was as unreadable as ever. “It was nice to see my mom again,” he commented. “I don’t really…” He stopped abruptly, as if he suddenly realized he was speaking out loud.
Lucy slowed him with a hand on his arm. “You don’t really what?” she prodded.
Wyatt took a breath, examining his shoes before slowly looking up at Lucy. “I don’t really remember her that much,” he said quietly, and Lucy’s fingers slid down his forearm until they curled about his hand.
“I liked her,” she told him.
“Not as much as Rufus did,” Wyatt returned with a subdued smile.
“Oh God, he’ll be going on about that forever!” Lucy agreed.
“He thinks my mom was Tinkerbell,” Wyatt pointed out flatly.
“There are worse things she could have been,” Lucy said. “Still. She seemed like a nice person. Had a good heart.” She squeezed his fingers gently. “She reminded me a lot of you. Or you remind me of her. You know what I mean.” She smiled softly at him. “You’re a lot more like her than your dad.”
“God, I hope so,” Wyatt murmured.
Lucy squeezed his hand again. “I’m glad you didn’t…unmake yourself,” she said softly, blinking up at him with suspiciously watery eyes.
Too much damn 1970s mascara again, she told herself.
Yeah, that was it.
Mascara.
He didn’t meet her gaze, his eyes downcast, fixed on her fingers entwined in his.
“Don’t ever think you’re not important,” she added, finally touching his face with a gentle hand and raising his eyes back up to meet her own. “Because you are. To me. Rufus. Agent Christopher. Every person you ever saved, every life you ever touched. I’m glad I know you, Wyatt. And I don’t want that to be undone. Not ever.”
Wyatt’s eyes seemed a little misty right then too, and Lucy was pretty sure he couldn’t blame it on 1970s mascara.
“Okay?” Lucy prodded.
“Yeah,” Wyatt agreed at length. “Okay.”
Lucy smiled brightly at him. “You know what we need to do right now?” she asked.
Wyatt squinted at her. “Do I want to ask?”
“Ice cream,” Lucy said. “We need ice cream.”
“We’re not six years old, Lucy.”
“You’re never too old for ice cream,” she told him. “Now come on. We should grab Rufus and Jiya on the way.”
“The way to where?”
“I know this fantastic little diner just down the street…”
“Oh God, kill me now…”
The End